


into the trees with empty hands

by Gintrinsic



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Angst, Multi, OT3, Post Season 3, alucard POV, he is Working Through Some Shit, i know he will likely become the villain but, if there isn't an OT3 moment in season 4 i will scream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23742730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gintrinsic/pseuds/Gintrinsic
Summary: “You came back,” he remarked casually, choosing to ignore their disquietude. It took some effort to keep his voice in light, to maintain that fine line between smooth and apathetic.“Of course we did,” Sypha answered brightly, canting one hip to the side as she hesitantly smiled; her lips, like the pink-gold of a nectarine, curved just for him.And for one brief, breathless moment, Alucard focused just on that. It did not last.
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & Trevor Belmont & Sypha Belnades, Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	into the trees with empty hands

**Author's Note:**

> I binged Netflix's Castlevania and fell hard; decided to try a New Style for this fic, not sure how well it came together. Alucard is a complicated, beautiful wreck lol. Comments appreciated!
> 
> Title from Hozier's "In the Woods Somewhere."

Flies swarmed like great, somber clouds around Taka’s and Sumi’s bodies. The buzzing was incessant, a concert of flying and chewing and egg-laying that grated on Alucard almost as much as his memories from the previous night.

At least the morning, in all its normalcy, was quietly indifferent.

“Well,” Alucard addressed the frigid air, “I suppose I could have put up big signs all over the place. ‘Do not enter. Danger of death. Abandon all hope’. That sort of thing.”

He sneered as he passed both corpses, feeling vindicated with every step they could not follow. “But this seemed to work well enough for dead old dad.”

The castle doors closed behind him with a sound resembling finality. Across the surrounding hills, fog rolled in.

—

In the days that followed, life went on much as it had before. There were winter vegetables to harvest, books to read, swordsmanship forms to practice. The Belmont hold lay like some cavernous, gaping mouth in the near distance, and there was always distraction to be found there.

It was a monotonous but reliable sort of work, a routine he could trust. It was close to peaceful.

On a dreary evening, when sleet beat a loud, unsteady pattern against the windows, he finally worked up the courage to throw those bloodstained sheets into the fireplace. He did not stay to watch them burn.

—

Some passages of the castle Alucard resolutely ignored. Others, he haunted like some melancholic specter, reliving the past with closed eyes and a vulnerable mind.

He frequented his mother’s laboratory the most, seeking warmth from remembrance in an otherwise cold and stagnant castle. At first, he carefully avoided touching anything; for a week he walked paths around the broken glass and exposed machinery, feeling intrusive even though his mother had long been stolen from him. Hers was a sanctum of an eternity cut short.

One morning, Alucard looked upon the laboratory without the expectation of memory. The sunshine pouring through the windows was unfettered by any cloud coverage, and some of the instruments cast rainbows across the walls. He loved it.

Alucard began cleaning up the laboratory the next day.

—

As a breeze sighed its way through the tall grasses surrounding the castle, waves of gold fluttered like beckoning veins of splendor. Short-lived shadows dappled the ground, cast by swaying overhead foliage and the evergreen branches that grew it. Despite the season, the nearby forest was ripe with the sounds of life; chirping birds and bubbling streams, the slide of sun-soaked fish and the quiet, careful footfalls of deer. It was a beautiful morning, Alucard mused, a winter fairytale setting.

Fitting, then, that a certain Belmont would be the thing to break the spell.

“Uh…” Trevor drawled with his usual eloquence. “What the fuck?” He stared at the partially frozen remains of Taka and Sumi from atop the same horse-drawn wagon that had departed these grounds more than two months prior, looking worse for the wear. Beside him, Sypha wrinkled her nose and lithely hopped down from the seat.

“That’s certainly concerning,” she offered, approaching the closest corpse with visible pause. The horses, snorting warily where they stood, seemed inclined to agree.

Alucard made no effort to be discreet as he emerged from the edge of the woods, gliding into the sunlight with long, proud strides as he prepared to face these harbingers of consequence, these bright-souled antitheses to his own stunted humanity. He was pleased by the way both Trevor and Sypha immediately tensed, though he could not say why he felt that way. Perhaps their instincts still recognized him as a threat. Perhaps he simply wanted to feel bitter. Petty disdain was still better than the oppressive _griefregretloathing_ of every other minute since—since—

“You came back,” he remarked casually, choosing to ignore their disquietude. It took some effort to keep his voice in light, to maintain that fine line between smooth and apathetic.

“Of course we did,” Sypha answered brightly, canting one hip to the side as she hesitantly smiled; her lips, like the pink-gold of a nectarine, curved just for him.

And for one brief, breathless moment, Alucard focused just on that. It did not last.

—

The entrance hall was quickly becoming one of Alucard’s least favorite rooms.

“What happened to your wrists?” Sypha asked, not for the first time.

“Why are there bodies—human bodies—on pikes out front?” Trevor added.

It was an understandable point of concern; it was also simply the last thing Alucard wanted to talk about. “I had some trouble,” he replied, carefully and without inflection. “No longer.”

His once-comrades stared at him with similar expressions of suspicious disbelief.

“Funny,” Trevor growled, “because I thought the three of us _stopped_ Dracula. I didn’t realize we were just paving the path for his junior wannabe.”

There was a sudden rush, a stomach-curling _thump thump thump_ that Alucard belatedly realized was his own racing heartbeat. He felt his hands begin to shake. He took measured breaths, refusing to speak when his tolerance was a thin veneer of control, when something fouler and monstrous lay simmering beneath the surface of every surging, defensive urge. His wrists, exposed just as he had been before _them_ , burned and burned and burned.

“Trevor,” Sypha murmured, placing her hand on his forearm. Trevor glanced down at her before looking back at Alucard; his gaze, although still wary, became tempered.

And suddenly, Alucard thought he’d rather be anywhere else. He cleared his throat. “Are you two staying long?”

Sypha pursed her lips in consideration. “A few days, at least. Right, Trevor?”

“Yeah,” he answered after a moment. “Could use a break.”

“And a bath, clearly,” Alucard observed, though his heart wasn’t truly in it.

Trevor, for once, didn’t rise to the bait.

“I’ll start preparing dinner,” Alucard stated to break the silence, to escape the way they tracked his every little movement, turning away and exposing his back even though every primordial influence screamed not to do so.

“You want to explain the new yard décor?” Trevor asked after him, and although Alucard knew for a fact that the Belmont still stood at least several meters away, he swore he could feel those words on the back of his neck. Heavy, pressing, like the weight of Sumi’s and Taka’s last touches.

“No.”

—

The kitchen was a study in sensory exploration. Thin strips of venison sizzled in a large, cast-iron pan while chopped vegetables swirled in a glass bowl like colorful jewels amid a mixture of vinegar and spices. With deft hands, Alucard sliced onions and garlic cloves before tossing them in with the venison. The resulting steam curled with a hiss.

Across the kitchen, Sypha's eyes danced with a wealth of curiosity, flitting from one thing to another, never settling for long. Trevor, in contrast, was a darker spot in the corner; tense like some cautious animal, a predator under reservation as he watched, waited, worried. Alucard felt his skin prickling under that critical stare, and it took an effort not to bare his teeth. He wondered if wine would help, then he scoffed quietly.

Of course it would help.

"Oh!" Sypha blurted, and Alucard looked up sharply before he could help it. His stomach dropped when he realized that she was holding a doll in each hand. “Are these… us?” she asked, staring intently at her poorly designed lookalike.

When Alucard remained silent (though, inwardly, he groaned, and contemplated fleeing through the window), Sypha looked up and emphatically gestured with both dolls. “Alucard?” Without waiting this time, she turned toward Trevor. “Look, Trevor,” she demanded, then grinned at the Trevor lookalike. “He even got your terrible scruff.”

Trevor looked like he was torn between various expressions, but he finally settled on a smirk. “So you play with dolls now?”

Alucard turned off the stove and set out plates with more force than necessary. “Yes, well, the practice of voodoo can be a great outlet for creativity.”

—

That night, he slept terribly. Every time his thoughts quieted just enough to slip toward unconsciousness, Alucard startled awake with the faint impression of hot metal wrapping around his body. After the third time, it was clear that sleep was a lost cause.

“Fuck,” he whispered, staring at the ceiling. It did not whisper back.

Pillow in hand, he went to find rest in his mother’s laboratory.

—

Time, Alucard decided dismally, was incomprehensible.

The month between Sypha and Trevor’s departure and Taka and Sumi’s appearance had stretched into eons; like he was the only living person experiencing uncountable days, stuck in a second in a minute in an hour that flowed endlessly into the formulaic dawn of each new day.

And now, standing in the relative shadow of an overhead balustrade, eyes heavy and hair still tangled from fitful rest, he watched Trevor kiss Sypha’s temple and thought, hopelessly, that there would never be a slower moment.

—

“You should let us cut them down,” Trevor said plainly.

Alucard tightened his grip and stepped into the next practice form, letting his sword sing quietly through the air with every graceful swipe. “I don’t see why you care.”

“ _Really_?” Trevor snapped, crossing his arms and leaning back against the doorway as he watched. “At this point, I’m not sure if I should call you a monster or a hypocrite.”

“Hm.” Alucard adjusted his stance and kept his shoulders loose. “Why not both?” he offered neutrally. “You’ve never bothered trying not to overcompensate before.”

“Asshole.”

There wasn’t much heat behind the word, Alucard noticed. He twirled, slashing at the air, wondering what that Belmont temper was waiting for, wondering when he’d inevitably hear the shrill whistle of whips, the spark of self-righteousness to announce new pain.

Instead, he heard something different.

“They’re wearing night gowns.”

Alucard stumbled, tripping on his own feet, and that clumsy humiliation was only overshadowed by a raging sense of shame. He hurriedly spun toward Trevor and held tight to his sword, baring his teeth in furious imitation of a snarl. “What of it?” he demanded, wanting _nothing_ of it.

But Trevor only watched him silently, his expression closed-off in a way Alucard had never seen from him. It was unexpectedly intimidating, an insight into old blood. Then, blue eyes flicking toward Alucard’s sleeved wrists, Trevor finally sighed. “Sypha was right,” he said cryptically.

“Right about what?” Alucard bit out defensively, but Trevor just waved the question aside with some mutter about needing a drink, and left.

Alucard stared even long after he was alone.

—

Sypha found him in the sitting room, reading in front of the fireplace. It might have been hours or days later, he wasn’t sure; time, again, was a creature that was best left unobserved.

“What are you reading?” she asked, sitting down to his right on the couch. The plump red cushion dipped with her weight.

“A Greek epic. I used to like it when I was younger. Now, I’m not so sure.”

Sypha shrugged, leaning closer as she studied the page. “Tastes change,” she offered understandingly. “We’re always evolving.”

Alucard huffed, smiling a little despite himself, despite the way he felt nervous to nearly be touched. “Is my interest or lack thereof in Grecian adventures a symbol of evolution, then?”

Sypha rolled her eyes but smiled back. “I offer you a sliver of Speaker wisdom, and you tease me.”

Before he could reply, Trevor walked in with a yawn. “Hey,” he greeted them casually, looking somewhat mussed. He sat down on Alucard’s left; and just like that, they formed a cage.

The fire was a bright, color-shifting focal point. It licked like some hungry, sentient animal, its tongue fleeting yet insistent upon the wood. Alucard willed himself not to feel trapped as he watched it.

“I pulled their bodies down,” Trevor admitted quietly. There was dirt under his fingernails, a dark stain on both palms.

Alucard wondered if it was just his imagination that he could smell frozen, blood-soaked earth. “You had no right,” he murmured, trying not to clench his jaw.

“You really want to argue about this? About keeping corpses on pikes by your front door?”

No, Alucard supposed. No, he did not. He felt heavy, like an amalgamation of exhaustion and aimless distress. He thought of his father and wondered if Dracula had felt this way, too. He wondered if he should feel ashamed at the comparison, then decided it was much too tiresome of a thought to pursue right now.

“You don’t know what happened,” he told them instead.

“No, we don’t,” Trevor agreed. “Got a few guesses, though.”

Sypha surprised him by taking his right hand. Her fingers were warm and slightly calloused, and she slid them between his own like she could fit him back together without knowing how or why. The whole of Alucard stilled, and he felt tension seize his breath. He wanted to run. He wanted to lean into them both. He didn’t know what he wanted.

When Trevor suddenly held out his own hand, palm up, Alucard seized it like a lifeline.

The fire continued to crackle gently, but its warmth was nothing compared to them.

Sypha brought his right hand to her lips, and she placed a light, unassuming kiss across his knuckles. The touch, he was surprised to discover, didn’t make him feel worse.

“This is a comfy couch,” she observed. “Say what you want about vampires, they know how to pick quality furniture.”

Trevor made a protesting noise for the sake of protesting, Alucard suspected. “It’s alright. Sat on better.”

Sypha sighed contentedly before resting her head on Alucard’s shoulder. “I could fall asleep right here.”

Alucard took a moment to find his voice. “I suppose that’s fine.” The words were barely a murmur, but full of relief to the point of bursting. He waited a moment, cautious, then leaned his head on hers.

Trevor squeezed his left hand.

They stayed like that for some time. Alucard did not care to know how long.


End file.
